R/GA Hosts the Future at Transformative Speed

On Thursday night, October 17th, BIC held its annual Mix+Mentor networking event at the AMAZING offices of R/GA in Hudson Yards.  A crowd of nearly 100 guests showed their commitment to the future by meeting and promising to mentor members of BIC's Class of 2021 featuring 35 hard-working grad students from across the globe, around the United States, and right here from New York City. Industry professionals, consultants, and recruiters from agencies such as R/GA, Ketchum, VMLY&R, Golin, Citizen Relations, FutureBrand, Vision7, Publicis, The ONE Club, Arnold, Hunter, HBO, Carat, Penthera, WPP, mcgarrybowen, Canvas Blue, Stanton, GroupM, NBC, Menos es Mas, American Express, Kepler Group and Egami offered encouragement, exchanged business cards, and made commitments to mentor.

Many BIC faculty including Professor Gerardo Blumenkrantz, Belle Frank, Carole Walker, Rodes Ponzer, Cassondra Bazelow, Caroline Monday, Amy Gomez, and Gabriela Mirensky as well as board member Gustavo Stecher (all the way from Buenos Aires) along with a ton of BIC alums were also among our distinguished guests. BIC Program Director Nancy R. Tag thanked R/GA for hosting this year’s event, with special thanks to R/GA Manager of Talent Transformation Liz Zenz who helped organize the Mix+Mentor along with the powerhouse BIC team of Marlene Leo and Mira Steinzor. Professor Tag then welcomed the crowd by introducing BIC's Class of 2021, the seventh since the program's launch in 2013.

She also noted some of last year's outstanding accomplishments which were featured on monitors around the room, creating an immersive BIC experience and dramatizing R/GA's motto "transformation at speed." Highlights included BIC’s One Show wins, a MAIP scholar, and six TLF fellows as well as a robust roster of @BIC lectures that welcomed such leaders to campus as Michael Roth, Paula Scher, Barri Rafferty, Douglas Rushkoff, Matt Neale, Gail Heimann, and Sir Martin Sorell. 

But the focus of the evening was really on the incoming BIC Class of 2021: "By committing to BIC's two-year master's degree program in order to think more deeply about the issues impacting media and communications today," Professor Tag noted, "these students have already demonstrated a commitment to the industry -- and to everyone in the room who's dedicated to future." Past sponsors of the BIC Mix+Mentor have been TBWA\Chiat\DayNY, Y&R, Ketchum, McCann, and GREY.